Sunday, April 25, 2010

In our empty kitchenshe held me,shaking with overlapping sobs.And I held back – held on for dear life,stunned into an impervious state.It was a crying so surreal;so severe, that it soundedlike wails of laughterbouncing off the walls of the roomand slapping my face likean unyielding torrent of anguish.The ambiguous streak that dividesthe two forms of hystericsis shockingly obscure.I had to check her face – make sure the tears were real,make sure the maternal bodyupon my framewas racked with grief,not laughter;seizing with pain,not laughter.It was a sobbing so intenseit tricked me into laughing.I couldn’t stop.An uninvited grin spit out the anomalyin that drenched kitchen,but she mistook my heaves for empathizing sobs.And as I stood letting her tearssoak my hair and neck with guilt,I marked the moment where the weight of those yearsfinally took its tolland made me laugh asmy mother cried with the sadnessof an entire dying world.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Under the blanket of darkness, she reveled in silence. So easy to forget the day, as the shadows slowly merged to fill each corner and crevice of the room. She could see nothing that could harm her in darkness, and hear nothing that would hurt her in silence.

The only reminder of the outside world was the occasional uninvited headlights that invaded the bedroom through the curtainless windows. If the outside reminders became too insistent, she would pull the covers over her head, sheltering her adolescent mind from what was too much to endure.

It was then she could try to sort the day. It was before she knew better than to try to implore God for empathy and reformation. It was long before she had quit wondering why she was obligated to carry such weight, before she had succumbed to just bearing it without question. She put these questions forth, to the darkness, to her God, to the guardian she clung to, and she searched her heart for answers, finding only herself and the silence of the night.

When the sun adversely rose, the familiar sounds assaulted. The refuge consumed, she was bare and exposed. She ignored her shining vulnerability, however, already looking toward the night and the absence of the desolate flow of the day. She proceeded down, toward the noise and into the lion’s den to fill another page of her life.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

I didn't cry because I didn't know what to think.The day was full of conflict.Thunder cracked and a stream trickled off the tent and down my back,slow and unavoidable.Rain splat and packed the ominous mound of dirt,drowning out the chanted condolence.I didn't know my family; they were someone else that morning.But I finally knew my uncle.He shared so much with us this way.The depth, the darkness, the last minutes of utter despair.The hopelessness of seeing no way out,of seeing no other possibility but ending his life.

"As the pain that can be told is but half a pain, so the pity that questions has little healing in its touch. What [she] craved was the darkness made by enfolding arms, the silence which is not solitude, but compassion holding its breath."